Happy late Birthday, little Benbear!! Looks like he is one happy little dude! I love his cake, so cute! I can so relate to the Thomas the Train obsession, my son,(who is now 20) would watch it over and over and over!! Thank goodness they had come out with the recordable VHS tapes so we could tape them. He would even start to tear up when he knew they were about to end. He saw the Barnum and Bailey circus train pass in front of us at a trainstop one time and he about climbed outta his carseat, he wanted to get on that train so bad. He done his "shadowing " in High School for the railroad company here in town for two years, he wanted to become a conductor. They recently moved the school to another state and you have to relocate and then be placed there, so he went into computer networking and (sob) there went his lifelong dream. He is such a homebody, he couldn't see moving that far away with slim chance of coming back. So, be careful with Ben, his love of trains may be around for awhile! Glad he had a wonderful birthday with his family! blessings-sherri

Thank you Mark so much for bringing this thread back up. Yes, we did just celebrate his 26th here at home. It was really a wonderful occasion. They are all doing well, employed and living in their own home now. What a difference a few months make! My grandkids come and spend a night or two every so often and I see my son every couple of weeks. It's just a long awaited dream come true to have them living within a 30 min drive! Thank you all for your well wishes. I'll be sure to pass them on to him. :)

Thanks so much you guys! It's been a beautiful day here. I don't know exactly but it had to have been around 70 and I got to play in the yard some. I don't remember it being so nice outside on this date ever. Had an awesome lunch at Longhorn's. Got a real neat bath set from my mother with bubble bath, lotions, bath crystals, I mean everything you can possibly think of, so am looking forward to a hot bath in a little while! It's been a great day. Thanks for the wishes!!

Keith, The cold held on here just a couple of days longer than it did there. I covered up everything with row cover about 2 days a week (I would leave it covered for 2 days and nights without uncovering it) for about 6 or 7 ridiculous weeks. What was the option though? To let it all freeze? Not if I could help it. Unfortunately, even while we were having nights in the 30s we were having occasional days in the 80s and 90s, so some of the cool-season stuff starting bolting, in some cases, about the same time the cold nights stopped. The onions and taters are fine, the broccoli is okay but slow to form heads (at least it hasn't bolted or formed button heads), the cabbage is right on schedule, the onions may be a bit smaller than usual because I didn't water them much and we're still in drought (though we clawed our way back from severe to moderate drought on the latest monitor) but they haven't bolted...and the garlic looks great. The cauliflower and snap peas produced fine, but I harvested the last of them and took out the plants this week. The brussels sprouts are forming sprouts but they need to hurry up before the heat gets them. The lettuce and other greens have been bolting, and I've been pulling them out almost daily and feeding them to the chickens. There's still a few heads of summercrisp varieties not bolting yet, but I don't think they'll last much longer. The only radishes left are the rat-tail radishes grown for their pods. I just pulled the last of the Swiss chard from last year as it has begun bolting, but have new young seedlings to put into the ground as replacements. I planted okra almost late---holding off and waiting forever for the cold nights to go away. When okra volunteers began sprouting in the area where I've grown okra the last two years, I decided it was warm enough to sow seeds. Now I need to go back and dig out the little seedlings that volunteered and move them someplace where there is room for them to grow. The tomatoes are happy and loaded with fruit, but it won't be as big of an early harvest as last year. I'm okay with that. I am so burnt out on canning, drying and freezing tomatoes that I am pretty much hoping for a late harvest of the paste tomatoes so that I don't have to spend the entire summer canning. I've got three ripe tomatoes, all from Bush Early Girl, sitting on the kitchen counter. I think I'll make BLT sandwiches for dinner tonight. The only other ripe tomatoes so far are from the other plants in containers, but the BEG is in the ground. Oh, the cherries in the ground are producing an occasional ripe one. I don't think the big harvest will start until about mid-June. That isn't surprising considering how odd our weather has been. I think last year's early warm-up just made this year's late cold so much harder to bear. I kept looking at plants covered up in row cover and thinking to myself they looked two months behind last years plants....and they were! They are catching up now that the cold weather is gone. I only planted about 1/4 as many tomato plants as last year. Since the tomato harvest will be manageable, I planted tons of cukes, melons, taters, onions and garlic. I knew I needed something to fill up the garden so I wouldn't just keep sticking tomato plants in every empty spot. I would love a late spring. One year we hardly broke 100 degrees at all. Maybe it was 2002? 2004? Whenever it was.....it was an awesome year. The tomatoes never slowed down and I didn't get all tired and burnt out and let the weeding get away from me. In more recent years, I have just let the weeds win the battle in July and August, and then when it cools off in September I try to get rid of them. It is a real good garden year so far....I've only had two snakes in the garden. The turtle who comes and patrols the rows of potatoes for bugs just showed up the week, so things are starting to feel kinda normal---finally. Dawn